


the curse

by Skyuni123



Category: The Brokenwood Mysteries
Genre: Character Study, Curses, Death, Gen, Murder, Witch Curses, why is brokenwood such a hotbed for murder? here's why
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 06:45:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13630860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyuni123/pseuds/Skyuni123
Summary: Mike Shepherd is cursed.He just doesn't know it.





	the curse

**Author's Note:**

> in the very first episode of brokenwood it's made fairly clear that homicides are a rare thing.
> 
> yet, somehow they increase when mike arrives.
> 
> here's why.

Mike Shepherd is cursed.

 

He doesn’t know it, has always just assumed that death has an unlikely habit of following him, but he’s definitely cursed. 

 

More than one of his school friends dies during college. His mother passes in a car accident. His high school girlfriend - his first ex-wife - finds her end at the bottom of a ravine.

 

Death follows Mike Shepherd, always claiming, never taking.

 

So he does something about it. 

 

He enrolls in police training college straight out of high school, makes his way through and aces it. He mightn’t be able to stop the death following him, but he can make sure there’s justice for it.

 

His first dead body turns up only three weeks into his proper shifts.

 

She’s young, and it’s bad. Blood, pain, brutality, it’s stamped into her skin like ink on paper. Aroha Harris. 17. Gone too soon.

 

She’s in the corner of a stairwell at her school with one solitary light flickering overhead.

 

“Probably a suicide.” Sergeant Al Parker, who’s a few years old than him, says. He’s already writing it off. Too much of a hassle to investigate.

 

Mike doesn’t like Al. The man has rubbed him the wrong way ever since he arrived in the City. He’s condescending, arrogant, and there’s something about him that seems wrong.

 

But he says nothing and just sits down on the edge of the stairwell next to Aroha, who’s barely been gone six hours.

 

“I can understand the appeal of this place, Aroha. It’s quiet. Alone.” He can hear Parker chortling behind him, but he ignores it. Aroha is more important. “But what made you come here?”

 

Aroha doesn’t respond verbally, of course, but he’s able to understand. “You wanted to get away from everyone. Why?”

 

The case is solved in days. Aroha’s murder is taken in front of the courts and her murder is jailed. Justice.

 

At the end of the day, that’s all he can do.

* * *

  
One hundred and thirty years earlier, on her deathbed, an Irish witch curses a family line that’s wronged her. “You will never bring life.” She speaks, “Aside from your own. You will only bring death, until you can help those who need saving. Justice will be swift and merciless. So mote it be.”

 

Brokenwood will never know what’s hit it. 

**Author's Note:**

> who can spot the reference to top of the lake? 
> 
> hit me up on the [ tumblr ](http://villainousfilmmaker.tumblr.com)


End file.
